Saturday Stuffs......

More aimless weekend wandering.........

Juanita's Tamales:

The Missus sent me on a mission early on a recent weekend, She had been craving Barbacoa from La Nortenita. Unfortunately, suffering from some "vapor-lock" I arrived and parked on Imperial Avenue at 8am.....the restaurant opens at 830! So with some time on my hands, I went for a very hot and sweaty stroll. And on my way back, I decided to grab some tamales from the Tamale cart that always occupies the corner of  25th and Imperial.

I ended up buying 2 pork and 2 chicken($1.25/ea) from the funny Lady who laughed at my pronunciation of "Pollo"......

The Missus is the Tamale eater in the family, and She had a Chicken to start:

Her verdict? Nice flavor, decent amount of chicken, but way too dry......

Coming soon to San Diego:

We were driving down Clairemont Mesa Boulevard when a "coming soon" sign caught my eye. I immediately turned into the parking lot of the strip mall that Thai Cafe is located in, and this is what I saw:

It seems that the Hot Pot fad that had hit the San Gabriel Valley is making its way to San Diego. I know it is much too hot to think about Hot Pot right now, but I'm looking forward to this restaurant. From the sign, it looks to be an outlet of Little (Fat) Sheep, a Hot Pot chain. Hot Pot is kinda going out of style in LA, the Hacienda Heights location of Little Sheep closed down a few months ago. You can read about Little Sheep on Professor Salt's blog here. So let's see it took 4 years(after moving from LA) for us to get good Sichuan, 6 years for Marukai, maybe by 2010 we'll see some Hunan food?

From the "making it's way to San Diego" department......

Some fads hit quicker than others. Remember the post on the San Gabriel "foot fetish"? Well guess what I saw today?

I guess some fads don't take very long to get here.....might come in handy if you do a lot of Barefoot Running!

From the "What been cooking" department:

This past weekend the Missus wanted me to grill some Hot Dogs, and joy of  joys, She even let me know a day beforehand! Since we'd be grilling, I went and picked up a few "goodies" for me. I went to Zion Market and picked up some thick cut Short Ribs for Kalbi:

I decided to do something I hadn't done in years...many, many years. That would be to butterfly my short ribs. Back home in Hawaii, my friends and I used to call this "Korean-style" Kalbi, mainly because in most of the good Korean Restaurants didn't serve cross-cut ribs, but butterflied thick cut ribs.

You separate the ribs into sections..."riblets" if you will.

Making sure that one end has a decent thickness of meat on it, you position the rib bone side down and cut across right above the bone, making sure to NOT cut all the way through. You fold that portion over and continue making 2-3 "flaps".

One thing I quickly noticed, I haven't done this in a verrrrry long time, and am severely out of practice. So basically my cuts sucked....

Still with my usual Kalbi marinade, it tasted pretty good.

Making the most of my grilling opportunity, I went looking for some chicken...but for some reason, I couldn't find anything satisfactory, so I modified my "half-cup" chicken marinade, and bought a Tri-tip from Seisel's. Usually, it's a half cup of Creamy Peanut Butter, Soy sauce, Sugar, Beer, and Miso, with some garlic and ginger. This time a doubled the sugar and miso, and added this:

And some Red Pepper Flakes for zip. The Sichuan Peppercorns I added having tasted Professor Salt's fantastic Tri-tip.

Turned out much better than I thought it would........though next time I'm adding even more Sichuan Peppercorns!

Photo of the week:

If this pooch could talk....

He/She'd be saying, "are we there yet???"

Comments

[Cathy]

Just whole peppercorns and marinade overnight? Or do you slightly crush them to get the oil to come out? I am so lazy and just buy the kalbi marinade in a jar at 99Ranch-whichever one is on sale or more sold out than the others on the shelf...

[Jenn]

Mmmmmm,...meat!
Mmmmmm,...foot massages!
Mmmmmmongolian? Never had it!

[liver]

Hi Kirk,

Your Kalbi looks great! BTW, a friend of ours mentioned her secret ingredient in her Kalbi marinade: Coca Cola! It must have some proteolytic enzymes that tenderizes meats, because we use it to clear clogged gastric tubes...

Can't wait for hot pot. Too bad it's not buffet style like Hot Pot City, but too many buffets aren't doing my waist line any good!

[Koko]

Looks like you did a great job on the kalbi. I will copy cat that for sure.

[Chubbypanda]

Amazing how much trouble you can get into with just "vapor lock". Think we can talk the Prof into throwing a BBQ get together?

[Carol]

Oh Kirk! Foot massages and kalbi. YA!! I bet that would be cheaper than going to a spa for a foot massage.

Thanks for the link to the blog. Now my reader count might go over 3, heehee. Thanks for the tip on butterflying the rib meat, too. Just in time for today's bbq. I've got 10 lbs of thick ribs marinating (the eating machines are coming over) and I might just try that. The Mister has me on a mission to find a good mac salad recipe. So if you got one, would love to try it. :)

[Wandering Chopsticks]

Oh! I always did wonder how Korean restaurants butterflied their ribs! I made kalbi this weekend too, but did the lazy crosswise cut.

[Kirk]

Hi Cathy - It's pretty simple first you "toast" the Sichuan Peppercorns(which aren't peppercorns) in a dry pan, then crush them.

Hi Jenn - mmmmmmm....... ;o)

Hi Liver - I use either Asian Pear or Kiwi in my marinade for the same reason.

Hi Koko - Thanks, it is pretty simple.

Hi CP - And how much money you can spend as well......

Hi Carol - Hope it turns out well. I sent you the Mac salad thingy...hope you got it!

Hi WC - Yes, it's pretty simple.....unless your cutting skills are out of whack like mine!

[Carol]

Hey Kirk! Thanks so much for the recipe! I didn't check my mail until after I've already started prepping it but I'm luck that the ingredients I threw together was very similar to the recipe :-D. I was out of carrots so wasn't able to add that. The Mister didn't want peas so I added 3 small minced sweet girken pickles. The Mister loves sweet girkens and thought the sweetness would substitute for the peas. I had already diced up the onions so I didn't puree them. I did add a little paprika and made one final adjustment on the taste after it "settled." Enough salt and pepper but it seemed to miss a little tanginess so I added a tablespoon of plain yogurt. That did the trick. It was a huge hit!

As far as the kalbi, it wasn't thick enough to butterfly nicely so I just left them. I added the Asian pear this time. Hard to say if it helped tenderize the meat but the meat was very tender. Over all, everyone ate like pigs!

[Kirk]

Hi Carol - Great, I'm glad things worked out for you!

[Nicholas Chee]

Oh my god. Accidentally discovered this blog and it made me salivating even right after my scrumtuous lunch.

Must be heavenly to be sorrounded by food!

[Kirk]

Hi Nicholas - Welcome and thanks for stopping by and commenting! The only thing better than being surrounded by food...is to be overwhelmed with good food!

[Sandy]

My husband and I went to Little Sheep on Saturday night. There was a pretty good wait for a table so we sat at the bar. That actually worked well for us to have our own soup pots instead of sharing (his was spicy, mine was original).

The advantage of having the stuff in the broth is that you know it has flavor (and not just MSG). Of course, it's a pain to fish out the floaters, but you get a ladle with holes. The broth did seem to have a lot of cumin, or at least more cumin than we're used to.

Service was pretty good; they would come around to ask if you wanted more broth in your soup pot.

Next time, it would be better to dine with more people so that we can try more items.

[Kirk]

Hi Sandy - Sounds like you enjoyed yourself...a couple of posts on Little Sheep are coming up.

[Jeff c]

Kirk,
I'm having a tough time visualizing the cuts for the ribs. Are you starting in the middle of the rib above the bone or to the side next to to the uncut portion of the bone then cutting through and then rolling it out and cutting again. sort of like a cake roll?
Our vietnamese grocery store does the initial cuts of the ribs like you do and leave you to do the butterfly. I might try this this weekend.
Oh, I really like the new recommendations blog links at the end.

[Kirk]

Hi Jeffrey - When I cut the ribs, I make sure that one side, either to the left or right of the bone has a good amount of meat. Once all the "riblets" are separated, I'll turn the riblet on its side with the portion with the extra meat to the side of the rib bone down on the cutting board. I cut downward leaving the connective tissue, and a thin layer of meat on the bone, leaving about 1/3" on meat on the bottom so I can fold everything out. I fold the meat out. Now the rib bone will lie flat on the cutting board with a flap of meat to the right of it(I'm left-handed, so you may have to do this in the opposite direction). I then start a shallow cut downward, than to the right, rolling the meat as I try to create a long meat flap of even thickness hanging off the bone. I know folkd who start at the middle, and butterfly out, but have never done that. I hope that helps. I may try to do a step-by-step when I make this again.